Lifestyle

****

Reviewed by: Andrew Robertson

Lifestyle
"Henrik Anderson's film is a sunny slice of a particular mindset."

Bright, sunwashed, clean - pressure washer country, patio glass reflecting forested hill-sides punctuated by households designed not by committee but by a particular kind of conformity. A world of air fresheners, where objects fit naturally into landscapes created by mood boards headlined GLOSSY; PASTEL; BIRCH.

Martin Hederos provides a score made of infomercial synthesiser, the kind of cheery electronica that suggests enthusiasm about blenders, an imminent montage of people failing to open a bottle of carbonated beverage, of a fixed grin extolling the obvious virtues of a cylindrical lasagne of uniform density to a depth of 21 centimetres (19 in Canada). Camilla and Freddy and Rasmus and Jenny are having a meal, salad in the sunshine on a deck, conversations about wine cellars (or at least wine fridges), but disaster strikes. It's followed by uncomfortable silences, by AA batteries falling from a digital camera, from the careful definition by implication of curves that these couples are ahead of, are behind.

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This is a world of barbecues, of balconies without guard rails, not one of garages and body bags. This is a world of salad tongs and cool blocks, not refrigerators, not flourescent lights - the shining generated by those pressure washers, not the dusty shelves they lie abandoned upon until company is coming. Henrik Anderson's film is a sunny slice of a particular mindset, the world that we glimpse through the pages of IKEA catalogues, the condiment-only pantries of serviced apartments and holiday homes. It's not hallucinatory, more pathologically aspirational towards gentle palettes and flattened affect, but its smoothness and polish are indicative and compelling.

Reviewed on: 13 Mar 2015
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In modern society, death is a scandal. We live in a time when various lifestyle images determine our ideals and our actions.

Director: Henrik Andersson

Year: 2014

Runtime: 14 minutes

Country: Sweden

Festivals:

GSFF 2015

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